A MIXTURE of young and old helped Basildon AC to third place in their first Southern Athletics League meeting of the season at St Albans.

The middle-distance athletes racked up a fair chunk of the club’s points haul with double wins being secured in the women’s 1,500m and the men’s 2,000m steeplechase.

Kirsty Tydeman clocked 4m 47.6s to win the women’s 1,500m while Emily Ballard (5m 31.5s) was the B-string victor. In the steeplechase, Seb Cirillo won the A-string in 6m 51.1s with Jon Burton topping the B-string in 6m 51.2s.

Gemma Kersey won the women’s 800m (2m 11.7s) while two youngsters got personal bests over the same distance.

Fifteen-year-old Meg Rapley (2m 27.7s) was third in the B-string race and Megan Cross, 14, ran 2m 32.4s in the non-scoring 800m.

Grant Webb won the 5,000m in 15m 58.7s while Stephen Davies set a PB in the B-string of 18m 30.5s.

Other PBs on the track came from Lauren Baxter (100mh 16.9s), Laura Kidd (2,000m steeplechase 8m 37.9s) and Tia Wood (200m 26.9s).

Teenager Christian Gray had a busy day on both the track and field, bagging himself three new PBs. He set bests in both the 800m (2m 12.3s) and 1,500m (4m 35.2s) and also the triple jump (9.92m).

On the field, there was a one-two in the women’s shot putt as both Jemma Pemberton (A-string, 9.77m PB) and Tammy Large (B-string, 9.43m) came out on top.

Teenager Olivia Bullis won the hammer with a throw of 35.39m which was just off her PB, while it was a good day for Aaron York who got a hat-trick of PBs (shot 8.27m, discus 22.13m and hammer 17.00m).

Other PBs on the field came from high jumpers Ben Scobie (1.40m) Meg Rapley (1.35m), as well as long jumpers Jan Barnard (4.65m) and Victoria Oshunremi (4.57m).